Thursday, December 31, 2009

(click ad, from a 1961 House and Garden) A little toothpaste of the dog that bit ya to get that "night before feeling on the morning after." Here you go Times Square (idiots) revelers: pick up a tube today and brush your way to a hangover cure tomorrow morning. Happy fucking end to the aughts. Don't let the door hit you in the ass, douchebag decade (via New York Shitty). related: the most racist toothpaste commercial ever.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

(click ad, via) Housewives of 1947 who dreamt of being able to wash underwear and silverware in the same machine had their fantasies realized by the imaginative engineers at Thor. Previously in: Buygone products.

It's Vintage Ad Week on copyranter: Hires 1937.

(click ad, via) It's sho nuf time fo 'nuther round of Retro Racist Ad of da Week. Previously, the maid of the house could barely contain her joy over the new GE sink the caring white folk had installed to make her job heaven. Here, the beaming servant, again speaking the language of the Coloreds as researched and reinterpreted by a slick Caucasian copywriter, serves Tom and Daisy Buchanan the real deal root juice root beer of Charles E. Hires. Yassuh!

Monday, December 28, 2009

It's Vintage Ad Week on copyranter: The S.S.S.

I'm actually on vacation in the desert land of guns and Dickman's Meat. But, I'll be posting one vintage ad a day all week just for the fuck of it. Today (click image, via): it's the Separate Sack Suspensory (S.S.S.)—"made just as nature intended" with "no scratching metal slides." Previously in: Buygone products.

copyranter on ANIMAL NY: Cremica biscuits.

(nsfw) Lanvin 2010: bloody, booby.

(click ad, via) This past weekend, the legendary Parisian fashion house previewed its Spring/Summer 2010 ad campaign. Most of the images are typical glamour shots, excepting this one—a very not-typical looking female model nude and rocking a sort-of post-Apocalypse zombie vibe (the look is reminiscent of this creepy nsfw Loree Rodkin jewelry ad.). In 2009, "dead" models made appearances in both men's and women's fashion spreads. This could be the start of a new zombie trend for 2010. Or, it's just a one-time red body paint session. What the fuck do I know? Just so's the size-zero zombies don't start jumping or giving us the finger.

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

It's another pre-rape Broomsticks ad scene.

(click ad, via) Last time, the permanent press pants-wearin' gangbang guys played Rape Ring around Rosie. Today, the game is "musical pillows," where "everybody falls...for (ON) Lisa." Notes: Click the above the link, and you'll notice that these handsome, identically-dressed devils were definitely two of the Rosie rapers. Also, those pillows. But hey, "if you don't want to play our way—take off your pants and go home." The third ad in the late 60s campaign is decidedly less rapey.

copyranter on ANIMAL NY: SubTalk with the MTA.

Is an "ironic" slutty men's fragrance ad better or worse?

(click ad, scanned from ESPN magazine) Curve for men is a 14-year-old Liz Claiborne cologne being reintroduced in recent men's pubs. The ad, art directed to look like a magazine cover, sports winking subheads: "cars, girls and girls on cars" and such (sigh). Yet, of course, it also still features the expected bosomy model, a Megan Fox doppelgänger (I'm assuming it's not her) named "Ima Vixen." You discover her stupid fake name when you go to the getcurve website, which was on the first version of this ad but is absent here for some reason and also doesn't show up when you google search "curve for men." At the site, you can view more slutty pics of "Ima," but if you make the mistake of clicking on her "likes/dislikes" tab, exactly 29 "blahs" materialize. How fucking clever. So, to answer my headline: WORSE. related: seven Axe Ads in one post.

Monday, December 21, 2009

worms wearing bibs eating your eyes with little pitchforks.

(click ad, via) Finally, another eye bank ad (the first was far more disgusting)! It's for the Bharat Eye Bank in India. It's by Chennai ad agency 1pointsize. I have nothing at all to say about it, I'm just so happy to now have two eye bank ads in my archives. Maybe you'd like to say something about it? Visually related: Eye Carumba! Eye Eye Aye! Eye Spy Racism! Dead Eye Dick! update: I have something to say! Why pitchforks? That's implying that eyeball-eating worms are evil. That's not right!

(nsfw) Cleanliness is next to Godlessness.

If I may be servicy for a sec, I found this website on the back page of last week's Village Voice. I don't accept ads on copyranter of course, but I felt these hard-working men deserved more exposure, so to speak. And, I have promoted creative local escortservices in the past. Not that this is an escort service. Just maid work, I'm sure.

The lame journalism metaphors of CNN.

(click ads) Ugly ads for the international version of "America's most trusted news source" by Berlin ad agency Heimat. My first guess was that these were spec ads. But after perusing the agency's website, CNN is a client of theirs, so they may indeed be real (Heimat didn't respond to my email inquiry.). The drilling and unzipping logo treatment metaphors, in addition to being painful, are also both rather sexual. They could use a little (LOT) more sexiness in their American promos as the network now sits below MSNBC in the news channel ratings rankings. Previously in: bad journalism advertising.

Could somebody please explain this Israeli Mazda ad to me?

(click ad, via) There's no brand name on the condom box, so it's not a bizarre cross promo. The MX-5 is a tiny auto with no backseat, so copulation is nearly impossible. And...HOW IN THE FUCK DOES SCREAMING 'USE CONDOMS!' AT ME SELL THE STUPID CAR IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER? Is it an Israeli custom to test-fuck in cars before buying them? I'm just curious, BBR Saatchi & Saatchi. This is even stranger than this snail-people MX-5 ad via UAE. update: as commenters have pointed out, Mazda is saying if you buy an MX-5, use condoms because there's no room for a baby. Thank you both for indirectly pointing out that I probably shouldn't be getting up at 5:30 every morning to write stupid blog posts before my real job.

TWEETY BIRD BINN!

Napoleon-complexed Jason Binn (real name Binstock), Advertising Hall of Achievement inductee, Prick (here's the evidence), and publisher of the worst group of magazines in the world, is twittering! As long as he keeps tweeting such twisdom, I will be following obsessively. U r admired, envied, feared, and trusted, JB. Note: sadly, he no longer reads my name before his own when he Googles himself.

The 39 kiloton exclamation point!

(click ad, via) The exclamation point—or "bang" (snicker) as it's known—is, almost always, a piece of punctuation to be avoided like radiation in advertising. Retro case in point: this 1946 Westinghouse ad! Descendants of the hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese civilians killed during and after the droppings of Fat Man and Little Boy (combined blast yield: 39 kilotons)? Bow to lamp research scientist Dr. Harvey C. Rentschler here. There's a second uncomfortable use of the bang, bold copy, first column: "Little did they realize that their know-how would one day give America a head start in the race towards history's grimmest goal!" YAY! Previously in disastrously ironic atomic age ads: Even this cloud has a silver lining.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Maybe, the best hair coloring ads I've ever seen.

(click ads, via) Not that I've spent the last 18 years paging through Glamour and Vogue. But I like the layouts and the weird but appropriate paint brush visualization. Then again, even though I did the bleach blonde look a couple of times in my brasher (way stupider) days, I'm not exactly the target audience for these ads for Wella's Kolestonhair coloring line by Leo Burnett in Frankfurt, Germany. For you newcomers, yes, I do occasionally like advertising. It's rare, but it happens.

Ad Creep Update: interactive abused child poster.

(click image) This is kind of the sister poster to Berlin's high tech wife-beating bus board. Drop a coin in the collection tin, get eye contact, a slight smile, and a thank you from the nice young actress (who demonstrates the poster in the short video below). It's like the Zoltar (from Big) of child abuse bus posters. It's for UK children's charity Barnardos, and sits at a bus stop on Tottenham Court Road in London. Note the CCTV warning at the top of the poster to scare away thieves. By BBH London, via. Previous high tech posters: Toronto's Green light switch poster. Knocked Up poster features live tadpoles. And Frankfurt seafood restaurant bus poster with live fish.

All you crazy Snuggie™ and Slanket® dillweeds need to settle the f*ck down right now...

(click ad, via) Welcome to 1975 and the "sleeper" gift of the season...The motherfuckin' Bundler™—"the "snuggly fashion that will make any big kid a beautiful baby all over again!" Underneath his Bundler, overheating hubby's probably wearing this Raschel knit onesie.

copyranter on ANIMAL NY: The Cli-Matrix.

Christmas Evil: the two worst X-Mas ads ever.

(click ads, via) After an exhaustive search through every holiday-themed ad that ever ran in the history of the world, I've found the absolute awfulest. Yes she was "happier with a Hoover." Because, luckily, hubby got her a heavy one with a nice long handle so's she could deck the halls with his blood...A fucking 10-lb fucking box of fucking Prunes! Well, "friend," I hope you won't mind terribly if I mail you back my 12 shits of Christmas! Search my X-Mas Evil archives here and here.